Montreal – Stephen Harper’s approval rating has reversed a two-year slide, jumping 11 points over 2013, according to a new survey conducted by Nanos Research for Policy Options magazine. The poll also revealed Canadians are slightly more positive about the direction of the country.
The 8th annual Mood of Canada tracking conducted in November 2014 showed that 37 percent of Canadians rated the federal government’s performance under Harper as “very good” or “somewhat good.” That’s up from 26 percent a year ago, when the Conservatives had spent the year reeling from a Senate expenses scandal that reached into the Prime Minister’s Office.
The percentage of Canadians who believe the country is headed in the right direction also rose 6 points – to 37 percent, which is however still the second-lowest number since the first year of poll in 2007. The mood of Canadians remains below what it was during the optimism of Harper’s first years in office: this year, 48 percent of those asked still believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
“There has been a bit of a recovery in 2014 from 2013, but many of the variables are still net negative,” said Nik Nanos, chairman of Nanos Research.
The research was conducted between November 15 and 18, reaching 1,000 Canadians through a combination of land and cell phones as well as a random online survey. The results were statistically checked and weighted by age and gender using the latest census information and the sample is geographically stratified to be representative of Canada. The margin of error for a random survey of 1,000 Canadians is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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Policy Options is published six times per year by the Institute for Research on Public Policy. The IRPP is an independent, national, bilingual, not-for-profit think tank headquartered in Montreal. To receive updates from the Institute, please subscribe to our e-mail list.
Media Contact: Shirley Cardenas tel. 514-594-6877 scardenas@nullirpp.org
